The theoretical study of the self-organization of two-dimensional and geophysical turbulent flows is addressed based on statistical mechanics methods. This review is a self-contained presentation of classical and recent works on this subject; from the statistical mechanics basis of the theory up to applications to Jupiter's troposphere and ocean vortices and jets. Emphasize has been placed on examples with available analytical treatment in order to favor better understanding of the physics and dynamics.After a brief presentation of the 2D Euler and quasi-geostrophic equations, the specificity of two-dimensional and geophysical turbulence is emphasized. The equilibrium microcanonical measure is built from the Liouville theorem. Important statistical mechanics concepts (large deviations, mean field approach) and thermodynamic concepts (ensemble inequivalence, negative heat capacity) are briefly explained and described.On this theoretical basis, we predict the output of the long time evolution of complex turbulent flows as statistical equilibria. This is applied to make quantitative models of twodimensional turbulence, the Great Red Spot and other Jovian vortices, ocean jets like the GulfStream, and ocean vortices. A detailed comparison between these statistical equilibria and real flow observations is provided.We also present recent results for non-equilibrium situations, for the studies of either the relaxation towards equilibrium or non-equilibrium steady states. In this last case, forces and dissipation are in a statistical balance; fluxes of conserved quantity characterize the system and microcanonical or other equilibrium measures no longer describe the system.

Topology sheds new light on the emergence of unidirectional edge waves in a variety of physical systems, from condensed matter to artificial lattices. Waves observed in geophysical flows are also robust to perturbations, which suggests a role for topology. We show a topological origin for two well-known equatorially trapped waves, the Kelvin and Yanai modes, owing to the breaking of time-reversal symmetry by Earth's rotation. The nontrivial structure of the bulk Poincaré wave modes encoded through the first Chern number of value 2 guarantees the existence of these waves. This invariant demonstrates that ocean and atmospheric waves share fundamental properties with topological insulators and that topology plays an unexpected role in Earth's climate system.

A theoretical description for the equilibrium states of a large class of models of two-dimensional and geophysical flows is presented. A statistical ensemble equivalence is found to exist generically in these models, related to the occurrence of peculiar phase transitions in the flow topology. The first example of a bicritical point (a bifurcation from a first toward two second order phase transitions) in the context of systems with long-range interactions is reported. Academic ocean models, the Fofonoff flows, are studied in the perspective of these results.

Internal gravity waves play a primary role in geophysical fluids: they contribute significantly to mixing in the ocean and they redistribute energy and momentum in the middle atmosphere. Until recently, most studies were focused on plane wave solutions. However, these solutions are not a satisfactory description of most geophysical manifestations of internal gravity waves, and it is now recognized that internal wave beams with a confined profile are ubiquitous in the geophysical context. We will discuss the reason for the ubiquity of wave beams in stratified fluids, related to the fact that they are solutions of the nonlinear governing equations. We will focus more specifically on situations with a constant buoyancy frequency. Moreover, in light of recent experimental and analytical studies of internal gravity beams, it is timely to discuss the two main mechanisms of instability for those beams. i) The Triadic Resonant Instability generating two secondary wave beams. ii) The streaming instability corresponding to the spontaneous generation of a mean flow.

International audienceWe report the experimental observation of a robust horizontal mean flow induced by internal gravity waves. A wave beam is forced at the lateral boundary of a tank filled with a linearly stratified fluid initially at rest. After a transient regime, a strong jet appears in the wave beam, with horizontal recirculations outside the wave beam. We present a simple physical mechanism predicting the growth rate of the mean flow and its initial spatial structure. We find good agreement with experimental results

This paper examines the factors determining the distribution, length scale, magnitude, and structure of mesoscale oceanic eddies in an eddy-resolving primitive equation simulation of the Southern Ocean [Modeling Eddies in the Southern Ocean (MESO)]. In particular, the authors investigate the hypothesis that the primary source of mesoscale eddies is baroclinic instability acting locally on the mean state. Using local mean vertical profiles of shear and stratification from an eddying primitive equation simulation, the forced–dissipated quasigeostrophic equations are integrated in a doubly periodic domain at various locations. The scales, energy levels, and structure of the eddies found in the MESO simulation are compared to those predicted by linear stability analysis, as well as to the eddying structure of the quasigeostrophic simulations. This allows the authors to quantitatively estimate the role of local nonlinear effects and cascade phenomena in the generation of the eddy field. There is a modest transfer of energy (an “inverse cascade”) to larger scales in the horizontal, with the length scale of the resulting eddies typically comparable to or somewhat larger than the wavelength of the most unstable mode. The eddies are, however, manifestly nonlinear, and in many locations the turbulence is fairly well developed. Coherent structures also ubiquitously emerge during the nonlinear evolution of the eddy field. There is a near-universal tendency toward the production of grave vertical scales, with the barotropic and first baroclinic modes dominating almost everywhere, but there is a degree of surface intensification that is not captured by these modes. Although the results from the local quasigeostrophic model compare well with those of the primitive equation model in many locations, some profiles do not equilibrate in the quasigeostrophic model. In many cases, bottom friction plays an important quantitative role in determining the final scale and magnitude of eddies in the quasigeostrophic simulations.

Topology is bringing new tools for the study of fluid waves. The existence of unidirectional Yanai and Kelvin equatorial waves has been related to a topological invariant, the Chern number, that describes the winding of f -plane shallow water eigenmodes around band crossing points in parameter space. In this previous study, the topological invariant was a property of the interface between two hemispheres. Here we ask whether a topological index can be assigned to each hemisphere. We show that this can be done if the shallow water model in f -plane geometry is regularized by an additional odd-viscous term. We then compute the spectrum of a shallow water model with a sharp equator separating two flat hemispheres, and recover the Kelvin and Yanai waves as two exponentially trapped waves along the equator, with all the other modes delocalized into the bulk. This model provides an exactly solvable example of bulk-interface correspondence in a flow with a sharp interface, and offers a topological interpretation for some of the transition modes described by [Iga, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 1995]. It also paves the way towards a topological interpretation of coastal Kelvin waves along a boundary, and more generally, to an understanding of bulk-boundary correspondence in continuous media.

Lamb waves are trapped acoustic-gravity waves that propagate energy over great distances along a solid boundary in density stratified, compressible fluids [1, 5]. They constitute useful indicators of explosions in planetary atmospheres [3, 4]. When the density stratification exceeds a threshold, or when the impermeability condition at the boundary is relaxed, atmospheric Lamb waves suddenly disappear [2]. Here we use topological arguments to predict the possible existence of new trapped Lamb-like waves in the absence of a solid boundary, depending on the stratification profile. The topological origin of the Lamb-like waves is emphasized by relating their existence to two-band crossing points carrying opposite Chern numbers. The existence of these band crossings coincides with a restoration of the vertical mirror symmetry that is in general broken by gravity. From this perspective, Lamb-like waves also bear strong similarities with boundary modes encountered in quantum valley Hall effect [6, 7, 8] and its classical analogues [9,10,11]. Our study shows that the presence of Lamb-like waves encode essential information on the underlying stratification profile in astrophysical and geophysical flows, which is often poorly constrained by observations. The simplest flow model supporting acoustic and internal gravity waves involves a compressible fluid in the presence of gravity −ge z in a vertical half plane (x, z). Owing to compressibility, such fluids support propagation of acoustic waves with sound speed c s . Gravity breaks the flow isotropy, adds an intrinsic frequency g/c s and allows for the propagation of internal gravity waves when the fluid is stratified, with density profile ρ 0 (z). Due to stratification, the system admits another intrinsic frequency N = −g∂ z ρ 0 /ρ 0 − g 2 /c 2 s . This is the natural buoyancy frequency of fluid particles oscillating in the vertical direction, commonly called Brunt-Väisälä frequency, and known to rule a variety of phenomena in atmospheres and oceans [5].The atmospheric Lamb wave is an additional mode that is known to occur in nearly isothermal atmospheres, in the presence of a solid horizontal boundary. This mode is peculiar, as it is vertically trapped above the ground, hydrostatically balanced, and propagates horizontally as a non-stratified acoustic-wave. Most remarkably, the Lamb waves transit from the internal gravity wave band to the acoustic wave band when the horizontal wavenumber is varied. The existence of an edge state that transits between two wave bands describing bulk eigenmodes (not localized on the boundary) is usually reminiscent of topological waves that are currently being discovered in virtually all fields of physics. The topological nature of such boundary modes is revealed through their robustness against various kinds of perturbations, and in particular to any modifications of the boundary. From this standpoint, the robustness of the Lamb wave is unsound as it was shown by Iga that this mode can disappear when changing the boundary condition [2]. We ...